One of the fun things about a Quiet Christmas is that ex-family food traditions can be observed, ignored or played with, and on different occasions @dduane and I have done all three.
We've stayed traditional with roast turkey (a crown roast not a whole bird, easier for two to consume - or slice and freeze - before boredom sets in) as well as non-traditional roast goose and, like this year, roast beef.
We've played with non-traditional turkey as Oaxacan mole poblano, and we've had Sauerbraten, venison, and even - with some special pleading at a Dublin game butcher - wild boar.
We've completely ignored the carrot-and-parsnip mash which - in my case anyway - always sat untouched in air-rescue-orange splendour on the side of my plate, because I hated the stuff.
Instead we've discovered the delights of roasting root veggies, a vast improvement on mashing them and, given there's often meat and potatoes already in the oven at Christmas, makes a lot of sense.
And every now and then there'll be a nod towards the tomato soup which invariably started any Christmas dinner from as long ago as I can remember until I moved out.
I like tomato soup in all its forms, so that wasn't a problem like the C&P mash, and as I got more adventurous the soups did too - but not at Christmas, because of Tradition...
*****
Soup wasn't planned at all this year, but happened unexpectedly when DD saw a recipe on-line - Spanish tomato soup with smoked paprika potatoes - and decided to try it.
This reads like a variant of Salmorejo, a cold soup like gazpacho, and having made it I think it would work well chilled in summer. In that case I'd either cut the potatoes into very small dice and fry them completely crispy, or slice them, fry them, let them cool and THEN dust them with smoked paprika / pimentón picante. Just a thought...
Because the decision was a bit spontaneous, i.e. after we'd done our last, very very last, bit of shopping, several ingredients were missing. We had no sherry, olives or orange juice, and neither of us could see the sense of two kinds of tinned tomatoes if the end result was going to be blended smooth.
It's a US recipe, so if "diced" and "crushed" have different flavours that makes sense. Here tinned toms are either whole or chopped, and I've never noticed them tasting different enough to matter.
*****
DD's IBS meant we also left out the onion and garlic, but I remembered we had a proper Spanish chorizo in the freezer, so that was defrosted, diced and added for a ten-minute simmer after the blending but before the potatoes.
The result...
...was superb.
The broth was rich, complex, warming and tangy, the chorizo was meaty and savoury, the paprika potatoes were spicy and just faintly crunchy along their edges.
Next time we'll lay in the missing ingredients and give them a try - sherry in particular Does Things For Soup - but our tweaked-by-necessity version was seriously good, and I can think of yet another tweak.
Adding chopped sun-dried tomatoes is getting two thumbs up from my Mind Palate, and there's at least one jar in the pantry, so I've a feeling there'll be another batch of this soup before too long... :->
